STIRRING SPEECH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 68, 21 March 1940, Page 8

STIRRING SPEECH

LOSS OF MORAL BACKGROUND Speaking at the Dominion Council meeting ol the League of Mothers held recently, Her Excellency Lady Galway, in replying to the tragedy of Wcu which nad overtaken us, said: ”A tragedy brings out all the more the necessity for an organisation with ideals such as has the league of Mothers, for I am convinced that the future of the world lies in the wider education of the young. When we look round and see the general disintegration of moral force the world over, and as emphasised in Germany particularly, we also appreciate the urgency for recovering an international standard so that in the future any nation and every nation will oe prevented from repeating the indiscriminate breaking of laws. Again I am convinced that the only way ic bring about such a state is to go to the very root of the matter, that is, to members of the younger generation. Not all organisations touch the points that we all have in mind. “We ourselves slid have much to do,” Her Excellency continued, “though Germany, and those nations that support her, stand in a class b„ themselves as demonstrators of a spirit that is wrong. We must make the home once again the fountain-head in the upbringing of our children ana their education—in giving them a sense of how to Jive. 1 am sure that such an education can be brought about only within the home, for the value of schools and other such organisations lies more in academic ways. We shan’t achieve anything by enunciating principles, for gooa can only come through sacrifice —it is by sacrifice that our homes are made and our children taught. “Many of us laught and criticise the excessive psalm-singing of the Tory days, but I’m sure that to-day we need some of that discipline, some of that psalm-singing, and that moral background which we have lost—in fact, all those things that in modern times have rather gone by the board. We might well take a lesson from our ally, France, which is far ahead of Britain in her sense of home life ana background. Those who know France well will agree with me in this. We must stay at home and teach our children instead of sending them promiscuously to the cinema. I’ve no hesitation in saying that that is one of the worst aspects of their upbringing to-day. Parents at Home, and I'm sure in New Zealand, too, send their children off to the theatre ‘to see something amusing,’ and often much harm is done. The films can be of great educational value but many are not suitable For very young people to see. We cannot relegate their education to any but ourselves and by this I do not mean the word in any secular sense.”